The Nation (Nairobi)

Uganda: Cell Phone Linked to Kenyan Trio

Nairobi — A cell phone suspected to have been left behind by the people who masterminded the Kampala blasts led detectives to the three Kenyans arraigned in court on Friday.

Intelligence sources in Uganda said an unexploded bomb left behind by the terrorists at a night spot in Makindye division helped them to piece together evidence that led to the arrest of Kenyans Idris Magondu, 42, Hussein Hassan Agade, 27, and Mohammed Aden Addow, 25.

The trio was charged with 76 counts of murder. The three men did not enter a plea.

Condemned arrest

But, speaking in Nairobi on Saturday, the suspects' lawyer Mbugua Mureithi and human rights activist and chair of the Kenya Muslim Human Rights Forum Al Amin Kimathi condemned the arrest and handing over of the trio to Ugandan authorities.

They said Mr Magondu and Mr Agade were part-time preachers in Nairobi.

Mr Mureithi accused Kenyan authorities of breaching the law in handing the suspects over to Ugandan authorities. Mr Mureithi said he has filed an application to have Kenyan police compelled to produce the suspects in court on Monday.

"We shall be in court Monday because, as far as I am concerned, my clients were kidnapped by a government that does not want to follow the judicial process," he told the Sunday Nation on the phone on Saturday.

He said that since they were arrested on Monday, July 22, neither their families nor their lawyers had contacted them directly.

Are depressed

"The families are depressed after receiving nothing but mistreatment from the government," he said.

Mr Kimathi also described the handing over of the suspects to Ugandan authorities as illegal.

Seventy-six people died and many others were injured in explosions at the Kyadondo Rugby Club and the Ethiopian Village Restaurant. The victims of the blasts were football fans watching the World Cup final between Spain and The Netherlands on the night of Sunday July 11.

The militant Somali group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the bombings.

The Uganda police were backed up in their investigations by detectives from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation who offered technical assistance.

The suspicions

Mr Magondu, Mr Agade and Mr Addow were arrested in Kenya after the Ugandan police notified their Kenyan counterparts of their suspicion that the trio had made calls to a number in Uganda.

A detective told the Sunday Nation they had evidence that the trio had earlier made "several trips between Kampala and Nairobi by bus".

"We have their original bus tickets," the officer said.

Twenty-seven Ugandan nationals have also been arrested for allegedly hosting terror suspects. Police sources said some al-Shabaab agents are still hiding in Uganda and have issued threats to attack some places.

"Some of their group's agents are still in the city and still communicating in Kisenyi and Mbale," an investigator said.


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Comments 1 to 2 of 2 Post a comment

  • chokora
    Aug 2 2010, 02:46

    " ..Kenyan authorities of breaching the law in handing the suspects over to Ugandan authorities. "

    Of course. What is new?

    Consider this: Would a sovereign state, say the USA or UK, arrest its own subjects and turn them over to another country for trial?

    Of course not. That would be read as an admission of the failure of the state to dish out justice and to maintain law and order within its borders.

    Note that the UK still feels an obligation toward those with the remotest of connection to (white) UK. Note the case of the rhodies in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

    And Kenya. UK gets heavily involved each time a certain supposedly Kenyan citizen of british ancestry is tried for murder in Kenya. And within Kenya's system of phony justice, the happy killer is released again and again to kill a native yet again ...

    What would one expect of a "failed state" like Kenya? There is no integrity in their executive, legislature or justice system in which the '"rule of law" can thrive.

    Independent Kenya? Is Kenya a sovereign state? So, 'sovereign' Kenya essentially abrogates its sacred responsibility to its 'sovereign' citizens. It is telling to note that Kenya believes that its citizens would be better served within the justice system of mass murderer Museveni, the Killer of Loweero Triangle.

    What is new? Note that Kibaki has rendered many INNOCENT Kenyan sovereign citizens - his subjects and fellow Kenyans - into USA's secret cells for rape, torture and slaughter. Loved ones have not heard from them ever since.

    And Kibaki doesn't care to know about either.

    Poor dedan kimathi. Poor Mumia. And lenana. Poor Koitalel arap Samoei.

    [Kibaki would have rendered them.]

  • chokora
    Aug 2 2010, 03:04

    " There is no integrity in their executive, legislature .."

    You'd think that a group (of bastards) that is perhaps the highest paid in the would would have the pride to show why they are paid like top performers ...

    With most of Kenya starving, one is reminded of those opulent emperors who would admonish the starving rioting masses to eat bread. Well, the masses found the guillotine ..